so has seen a huge increase in sales since the economic collapse of late 2008.

Speaking at ILTM in Cannes president Kristi Jones revealed the crisis has failed to harm the growth of its member agencies who collectively have increase sales by 31% since then.

Jones also said the average selling price achieved by Virtuoso agents was? 39% higher than nearest competitors.

To those who predicted the demise of the travel agent she pointed to falling online customer satisfaction (down from 42% in 2003 to 28% in 2010) and the volume of sites visited by people booking online (an average of 21) as key reasons why trusted agents are doing so well.

She also shared a remarkable trend she had noticed from luxury cruisers: “When luxury cruisers get off the ship at the end of the cruise they spend a fortune on luxury non cruise travel in the next 90 days.

Virtuoso is 60 years old, has more than two million clients, and accounts for 9.6b